More than half of U.S. governors have banded together in an effort to respond to rising illegal migration at the southern border absent meaningful help from the Biden administration.
Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona announced the formation of the 26-state American Governors’ Border Strike Force on Tuesday, a day after the Biden administration released data that revealed more people were encountered trying to enter the United States illegally from Mexico in March than any month in 22 years.
“This is not just an Arizona issue, it’s a national issue,” Ducey said in a statement. “If our entire southern border isn’t secure, our nation isn’t secure. As dangerous transnational criminal organizations continue to profit from holes in the border and fill our communities with drugs, it’s no coincidence that we’re seeing historic levels of opioid-related deaths.”
The 26 states, all led by Republican governors, will work as a “force multiplier in the fight against criminal activity directly tied to our border” by increasingly sharing intelligence on state-level crimes, going after the profits that Mexican cartels make by smuggling people and narcotics, and enhancing patrols of major interstate highways near the border in an effort to interdict more smuggling operations.
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Last summer, a handful of Republican governors deployed state law enforcement and military to Texas to assist border security efforts. Those troops and police have since been pulled back to their home states, unable to sustain the cost of long-term deployments.
Under Texas’s Operation Lone Star effort to help federal law enforcement at the border, its National Guard and Department of Public Safety officers have encountered more than 225,000 illegal immigrants who would likely have slipped into the U.S. without being detected.
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In October 2021, 10 Republican governors introduced a 10-step plan that they asked the Biden administration use as a road map to regaining control of the southern border.
The other 24 states in the task force are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
